The thick fog at the Port of Philadelphia was torn apart by a dull siren.
An ocean-going freighter with an extremely deep draft, flying the Dutch flag and guided by two steam tugs, slowly approached a deep-water berth on the Delaware River.
The massive iron anchor crashed into the water with its chain, kicking up greyish-white spray.
George Westinghouse stood on the pier.
He wore a windproof black heavy wool coat with the collar turned up to block the biting early winter river wind.
Clive Cavendish stood beside him, still holding that walking stick with the solid silver handle.
The gangplank had just been lowered onto the pier when several uniformed Dutch first mates ran down, holding a stack of cargo manifests.
Cavendish stepped forward, exchanged a few words in fluent Dutch, then took the manifests and handed them to Westinghouse.
"Go inspect the goods, Mr. Westinghouse."
A smug curve formed at the corner of Cavendish's mouth.
"The Vanderbilt family's fleet did not disappoint. Three thousand tons of premium South American natural rubber. And five hundred tons of high-purity Silicon Steel Sheets loaded along the way from the Port of Hamburg in the German Empire. All freight-free, settled at mining cost price."
Westinghouse did not speak.
He strode up the gangplank and entered the freighter's hold, which smelled of sea salt and resin.
Two sailors used iron crowbars to pry open a massive pine crate.
Westinghouse reached out and grabbed a handful of raw rubber blocks that emitted a pungent, sour smell.
He squeezed hard, feeling the extremely tough elasticity. This was a completely different thing from the impurity-laden, easily-broken inferior rubber they had bought on the Pittsburgh black market.
He dropped the rubber and walked toward another iron crate tightly wrapped in moisture-proof tarpaulin.
He pulled back the tarpaulin.
Inside were neatly stacked piles of thin iron sheets coated with anti-rust grease.
Westinghouse took one out and flicked it with his finger.
The Silicon Steel Sheet emitted a crisp metallic resonance. Less than a millimeter thick with extremely smooth cut edges, these were formed in a single pass by the top-tier steam presses in Europe.
"Good stuff."
Westinghouse took a deep breath and turned to look at Cavendish, who had followed him in.
"With these, that madman Thomas can build the Transformer. Argyle' material blockade has completely failed."
"Unload the goods and put them on the Pennsylvania Railroad's special train."
Cavendish tapped the deck with his cane.
"Mr. Morgan's United Trust Bank has already opened in New York, and the first five million dollars in cash has been deposited into Westinghouse Electric's account. Gentlemen, you are now short of neither materials nor money. I need to see a machine that actually works."
Westinghouse quickly walked down from the freighter.
"I'll have Thomas living and eating in the lab for half a month. In just half a month, I can place a five-thousand-volt Oil-Immersed Transformer in front of you."
At the same time the cargo was being unloaded at the Port of Philadelphia.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In the freight yard of the Braddock Steel Works, the vibration of the tracks was deafening.
Andrew Carnegie, wearing a soot-covered bowler hat, stood by the tracks.
Beside him stood Charlie, the steel mill's production supervisor.
A steam train pulling fifty cars slowly pulled into the platform. The cars were filled with shiny black anthracite coal.
"Charlie, go up and take a look."
Carnegie pointed at the cars.
Charlie climbed onto a car, grabbed a piece of coal, weighed it in his hand, and then jumped down.
"Boss, top-grade Appalachian anthracite."
"Extremely high purity, almost no impurities. When this coal is put into the blast furnace, the temperature can rise by two hundred degrees, and the slag output is minimal. We simply can't buy this kind of quality locally in Pittsburgh. Where did this come from?"
Carnegie pulled the invoice stamped with the Grosvenor Family crest from his pocket and flicked it hard.
"Pulled directly from the Englishmen's mines, Charlie. Only two dollars a ton! Those Argyle vampires previously jacked the shipping costs up to five dollars a ton; now, all that money is saved!"
Carnegie turned around and looked at the blast furnaces in the distance emitting black smoke.
That was his lifeblood.
"Charlie, listen up."
Carnegie's eyes became as fierce as a wolf's.
"Once this batch of coal enters the furnaces, our steelmaking costs will drop by twenty percent. Go notify the sales department. For that backlog of heavy steel rails in our warehouse, cut the factory price by twenty-five percent immediately!"
Charlie was startled.
"Twenty-five percent?! Boss, wouldn't we then be making zero profit, or even losing money on every sale?"
"The losses go on United Trust Bank's tab. Old Morgan is backing me!"
Carnegie grabbed Charlie by the collar, spittle flying onto the other man's face.
"Isn't Argyle using five-year installment loans to steal our customers? I'm going to use absolute low prices to smash those railroad company purchasing managers right back onto my negotiation table!"
"I want Lex Steel's rails to rot in their warehouses. Send a telegram! Send a telegram to every major railroad line in America. Carnegie Steel clearance sale, as much as you want!"
Charlie nodded repeatedly, broke free from Carnegie's grip, and turned to run toward the telegraph room.
Carnegie stood in the cold wind, watching the anthracite coal being continuously transported into the factory.
He pulled a flat silver flask from his pocket, unscrewed the cap, and took a swig of strong whiskey.
After being suppressed for two full years, he had finally waited for this day to turn the tables.
...
Two days later.
New York, Empire State Building.
The door to the top-floor office was pushed open forcefully.
George Templeton, president of Imperial Bank, and Tom Hayes, president of Patriot Investment Company, walked in side by side.
Both of their expressions were very solemn.
Felix was sitting on the sofa.
Holding a velvet brush, he was cleaning a brass Phonograph model on the coffee table.
"Boss, the European capital has made its move."
Templeton walked to the sofa and slammed several thick documents onto the coffee table.
"A new bank called 'United Trust' has opened on Wall Street. The legal representative is the Morgan family's agent in New York. They've launched an extremely insane plan. For any city buying Westinghouse Electric equipment, or any railroad company buying Carnegie Steel, United Trust Bank will provide full interest-free loans! With a term of up to ten years!"
Hayes immediately followed up with his report.
"And Carnegie has gone mad; he cut the price of steel rails by twenty-five percent. Several Illinois railroad companies we signed with installment loans unilaterally tore up their contracts yesterday. They'd rather pay the penalty to buy Carnegie's low-priced steel. Lex Steel's orders have plummeted by forty percent this month."
Felix didn't stop the brush in his hand; he carefully swept the dust off the Phonograph's brass horn.
"Interest-free loans, dumping at cost price."
Felix put down the brush and picked up a cup of black tea nearby.
"Old Morgan has finally brought his European syndicate tactics to America. Integrating the supply chain and using massive cash reserves as credit backing to wage a war of attrition against us directly on price and capital costs."
Templeton pushed up his glasses, his tone urgent.
"It's not just the funding. An insider from Metropolitan Trading Company reports that Vanderbilt's fleet has delivered thousands of tons of top-grade rubber to Philadelphia. The Englishmen's coal mines have also opened up their supply to Carnegie. The material blockade we previously established was forcibly torn open by their trans-Atlantic shipping routes."
Hayes paced the room anxiously.
"Boss, we need to strike back. If Lex Steel follows suit with price cuts, our profit margin will fall below the red line. If we don't, Carnegie will eat up all our market share. Should we use the gold reserves in our vault to fight a price war with them?"
"Stupid."
Felix stood up and walked to the massive floor-to-ceiling window, overlooking the bustling streets of Wall Street.
"Fighting a price war is the most low-tech form of hooligan brawling. Old Morgan has forty million dollars in cash in his hands. He'd like nothing more than for us to dump all the gold we earned in Europe into the bottomless pit of steel and coal. As soon as our cash flow dries up, Imperial Bank will go bankrupt."
Felix turned around and looked at his two capable lieutenants.
"Let them cut prices; let Carnegie's blast furnaces run at full capacity. The more steel rails he sells, the more money he owes Morgan. Federal Realty and General Electric have been expanding recently; the production that Lex can't sell can be completely absorbed internally."
"What about Westinghouse Electric?" Templeton asked.
"They've got rubber and Silicon Steel Sheets. What if Edison really builds the high-voltage Transformer? Pittsburgh's ban can't control all of America. If they go to cities without bans to string lines, our Direct Current grid will be directly threatened."
Felix walked to his desk and opened a drawer.
"A Transformer is just a pump that raises water pressure."
Felix took out a document and tossed it onto the desk.
"Even if you raise the water pressure to ten thousand volts and transmit it a hundred miles away, you still need something to use the water at the destination. What is the fatal flaw of Alternating Current right now? It's that they don't have an Alternating Current Motor. Besides lighting those few crappy street lamps, their high-voltage electricity can't turn a single machine in a factory."
Felix's finger tapped heavily on the document.
"As long as they don't have a motor, even if they string wires across all of North America, they can't steal our industrial customers who need power. Notify General Electric's sales offices to accelerate signing exclusive Direct Current contracts with factories. Set the liquidated damages at astronomical prices."
Just then, there was a soft knock on the office door.
Timmy, the head of the Intelligence Department, walked in.
In his hand was a thick kraft paper envelope with a postmark from Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Empire.
"Boss, a mailbag sent back by Klaus via the encrypted line. There's a letter from Graz inside."
Felix's eyes instantly brightened. He reached out and snatched the envelope.
"All of you, out."
Felix dismissed Templeton, Hayes, and Timmy.
Though the three were puzzled, they didn't dare ask more and immediately left the office.
After the door closed.
Felix walked to the desk and cut the wax seal with a silver letter opener.
He pulled out the letter and the dozens of pages of manuscripts filled with complex mathematical formulas.
Pittsburgh, Westinghouse Electric second-floor laboratory.
The nauseating smell of low-grade asphalt in the air had vanished. In its place was the faint resinous aroma emitted by heated natural rubber.
Edison was wearing a clean white shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
He stood before a brand-new hydraulic press, watching workers tightly stack Silicon steel sheets together.
George Westinghouse held a blueprint, checking the number of turns on the coil winding.
"The quality of these Silicon steel sheets is simply perfect."
Edison picked up a leftover scrap and bent it in his hand.
"Almost no impurities, and the magnetic permeability is dozens of times higher than the crappy pig iron we used before. With this, the problem of eddy current heating is easily solved."
Westinghouse put down the blueprint.
"I've already had the casting workshop work through the night to produce the Transformer casing. A fully enclosed cast-iron shell, filled with insulating cooling oil. Even if the coils heat up, the insulating oil can quickly conduct the heat to the cooling fins on the casing. This thing will definitely not explode like last time."
Edison walked to the lab table and stroked the purple copper wires tightly wrapped in premium South American rubber.
"Assemble them, George. We'll test it in the workshop backyard tomorrow night. We'll start at one thousand volts, then push it straight to five thousand."
A fanatical glint flickered in Edison's eyes.
"As long as nothing goes wrong with the Transformer, we'll cable London immediately. Let Morgan handle those Midwestern city politicians. We're going to pull high-voltage lines all the way to Chicago!"
Westinghouse nodded, but a trace of hidden worry remained on his steady face.
"Thomas, the Transformer is built. But what do we use it for? We tried it on Carnegie's rolling mill. When the Alternating Current goes in, the rotor of the Direct Current motor just shakes violently; it can't spin continuously at all. If we can only use it for lighting, those factory owners won't buy in. General Electric's Direct Current can not only light lamps but also drive lathes. That is their greatest advantage."
The fanaticism on Edison's face froze.
He irritably grabbed a screwdriver and slammed it onto the workbench.
"I know! I've tried improving the brushes, and I've tried adding rectifiers! But as soon as the frequency gets high, the commutator sparks and burns out!" Edison gritted his teeth.
"This takes time! George! I need time to think of a motor model that doesn't need a commutator. But until then, we must build the Transformer first to stabilize the funding from London!"
"You focus on the Transformer. As for the motor, I'll contact the physics professors at several universities. See if anyone can propose a new theory."
Westinghouse patted Edison on the shoulder.
Neither of them imagined that the theoretical model they were desperately searching for—the one with no brushes and no commutator—was currently sitting on the desk of their most deadly enemy.
...
New York, Empire State Building.
Felix sat behind a walnut desk.
Spread across the desk were dozens of pages of manuscripts sent by Nikola Tesla from Graz.
The papers were covered with sine wave curves and diagrams of stator coils at offset angles.
In the blank spaces were dense calculus derivations.
Felix couldn't understand those complex physical equations.
But he understood the 3D structural diagram drawn on the last page of the manuscript.
A metal cylinder was placed in the center of several sets of coils.
Beside it was a line of slightly stiff English annotation.
"Utilizing two-phase or polyphase Alternating Current to generate a Rotating Magnetic Field, the rotor can be driven to rotate continuously without physical contact. — N. Tesla."
Felix's finger gently stroked this line of text.
"AC induction motor."
Felix whispered the name that was enough to change the course of human history.
He pressed the intercom on his desk.
"Have Pierce, the head of the Legal Department, come up immediately. Bring the best draftsmen and the patent drafting team. Now."
In less than ten minutes.
Benjamin Pierce hurried into the office with three assistants carrying briefcases.
"Boss, you called for me." Pierce walked to the desk.
Felix pointed to the pile of manuscripts on the desk.
"Pierce. I don't need you to understand the principles of the things on here. I just need your patent drafting team to translate the arrangement of these coils, the concept of the Rotating Magnetic Field, and the description of 'driving a rotor without brushes' into legal language."
Pierce took a diagram and adjusted his glasses.
"Boss. Is this a sketch of a newly invented machine? Are we going to the Patent Office to apply for protection?"
"Not just protection."
Felix stood up and walked to Pierce's side.
"I want you to draft an extremely broad, extremely vague 'Generalized patent'."
Felix tapped the diagram.
"Don't lock down specific dimensions or specific turns. Register the concepts of 'polyphase current','spatial alternating magnetic field', and 'contactless induction rotation' all under the name of the Argyle Family."
"I want you to use legal terms to block off every possible theoretical path leading to an 'AC motor' within the limits allowed by patent law."
Pierce instantly understood Felix's intention and gasped.
This was the most common tactic of patent trolls, but using it on such epoch-making technology was simply cutting off everyone else's livelihood.
"Boss, I understand. As long as this patent passes review, from now on, if anyone on American soil builds a machine that rotates using an alternating magnetic field—no matter what its specific structure looks like—we can sue them for infringement."
"Exactly." Felix walked back and sat in his leather chair.
"This manuscript is confidential; no one is to leak it. Draft the documents overnight. Tomorrow morning, send someone on the fastest train to the Washington Patent Office. Use the highest level of expedited processing and grease the examiners' palms. I want the patent certificate in hand within a week."
Pierce immediately had his assistants pack up the manuscripts.
"Boss. Whose name should be on the applicant line? Yours?"
Felix hesitated for a moment.
He thought of that young man studying hard in Graz.
"Use the name of Central Laboratory. In the inventor column, write 'Nikola Tesla'." Felix picked up his teacup.
"I am not a robber. The honor that belongs to him, I will give to him. As long as the patent rights are in my hands, that is enough."
Pierce nodded and took notes.
"Right, one more thing..."
Felix called out to Pierce, who was about to leave.
"Notify the Vienna branch of the Metropolitan Trading Company. Add another fifty thousand kronen to Tesla's educational trust account. Tell him to focus on his experiments without any pressure. If he needs it, I can buy half the laboratories in Europe for him to use."
Pierce left with his assistants.
The office returned to silence.
Felix twirled a match in his hand, and a flame flared up.
He watched the dancing flame, the smile on the corners of his mouth deepening.
"Westinghouse, Edison. You think that with rubber and silicon steel, you can build your own AC power grid?"
"Go ahead and build it slowly. When you've exhausted your efforts and finally built an AC motor capable of driving machinery, you will find in despair that the birth certificate for this machine was locked in a safe in the Empire State Building months ago."
"I've already hung this patent noose for you. I'm just waiting for you to stick your own necks in."